Ownership, custodianship, storage and access: integration
vs. disposal
The legal position of ownership of what is referred to here
as the LMI Legacy Collection is set out in the July 1944 agreement between the
Launceston Public Library Board and Launceston City Corporation, the present
owners (now known as the Launceston City Council). Responsibility for
management of the materials, as covered under the Libraries Bill of 1943, was
passed to the State Library Board. This
state of affairs was affirmed in the 1971 Regional Library Agreement between
Launceston City Council and the State Library of Tasmania. In this agreement
the Meston Collection and the LMI Collection were excluded from the general
transfer of assets from the LCC to the State Library Board. These arrangements
were reaffirmed in a working party report under the chairmanship of Sir George
Cartland in 1979 and in correspondence between the LCC’s Corporate Services
Manager and Minister of Education Peter Rae in November 1987.
The custodianship of the collection once held by the
Launceston Public Library Board, the body that inherited LMI material, has been
with the State Library since 1945. As the body responsible for providing public
library services in Launceston it has managed its working collection
professionally, which has meant adding to stock, moving items from one part of
its collection to another, weeding by disposing of damaged stock or placing
out-of-date items still needing retention in stack, maintaining an up-to-date
catalogue for items in use etc. All
these have had an impact on the LMI Legacy Collection, and their integration
into or exclusion from the larger operation of the State Library has been a
necessary part of that management.
However it has led to the issues of ownership and custodianship being
overlaid and in one sense now inextricable.
It would appear that only the clear ownership by LCC of the LMI Legacy
Collection has saved parts of it from disposal since 1945.
Storage of the large number of books and serials, much of it
acquired in the heyday of the Institute in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, has been a problem for the State Library, and since the
transfer of the nonfiction lending collection back from the Moonah store, for
Launceston Library/LINC. Pressure for space in the building that is about to be
renovated has rendered this problem a pressing one. However it would be most
unfortunate if that alone was a driving force in the disposal of items whose
significance to local historians is undisputed, and whose significance
nationally is unknown because they are uncatalogued.
Under the present arrangements for the LMI Legacy
Collection, some parts are accessible, in constant use and are highly
valued. These have emerged as important
at every stage of the professional operation of the libraries holding them. The
parts in stack have been set aside at various stages as not fitting the
immediate needs of a working collection. Some of these have subsequently been
realised to be of national importance, most probably because other working
libraries have disposed of similar items long ago. Until the rest are accessible and catalogued,
the remainder’s national and local value cannot be assessed.
The key to a locally-sensitive evaluation of the LMI Legacy
Collection is considering it as a whole. From 1842 the LMI became the main
resource for the cultural life of the town as a regional centre and later as an
emerging city. The records and relics of
that time which still exist give the fullest picture we can form at this remove
of that life. Although degraded by use
and long-term storage, these books and periodicals give insights of a very
specific kind into what was available to residents in a part of colonial
Australia, how they were acquired, how they were received, and how fashions in
reading changed. From this perspective, amount of wear, card pockets, date
stamps and other associations with their library origins are part of the
significance of each item. For book collectors, of course, they reduce their
value markedly, and it was from this perspective that the lending nonfiction
has recently been assessed.
Until the parts of the collection in boxes are taken out and
reviewed in terms of their contribution to the whole, there should not be any
disposal of items. There are several audiences for the information generated by
cataloguing those that are retained and by access to the books and serials
themselves, including Northern Tasmanian local historians and researchers in
the fields of the sociology of education, reading and the community and the
history of ideas. Reflecting these diverse ways of viewing the LMI Collection,
there are three agencies represented in Launceston which could provide for its
professional management and guardianship: LINC Tasmania, the Queen Victoria
Museum and Art Gallery, and the University of Tasmania.
If researchers and other professionals from the national,
state and local networks associated with these agencies can act in partnership,
it will assist greatly in maintaining the Launceston community’s cultural
heritage. Support from the management of the agencies and from the Launceston
community itself will be vital to achieve this collaboration. Assuming the
legacy collection is retained in Launceston, that is, the parts are kept in
reasonably close physical proximity, and with openness of access for these
diverse professional and community groups, suitable responsibility for the
parts of the materials could be:
Launceston LINC/TAHO/Local Studies Collection – The Meston Collection, photographs, newspapers and
government publications;
QVMAG – The records and objects;
University of Tasmania – The periodicals, adult nonfiction and literature (including
popular fiction and children’s literature).
It would take time, commitment and leadership to enable a
working relationship of this kind to be established, and it is important that
the process is consultative and mutually fruitful at management and research
levels. It is vital that the collection
not be further dispersed, and certainly parts of it not disposed of, until the
necessary time is given to consultation.
